The Dutch Prime Minister won in leading his center-right coalition in parliamentary elections. The Prime Minister of the Netherlands, facing what polls had predicted would be a narrow defeat in parliamentary elections, carried his center-right coalition to triumph today. The victory by Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers removed the possibility that there would be a reconsideration of the Netherlands’ wrenching decision to deploy 48 American ground-launched cruise missiles in 1988. The elections turned in large part on the issue of Mr. Lubbers’s efforts to trim the welfare state and stimulate economic growth. But at the same time, the vote was widely seen as a personal victory for the 47-year-old Prime Minister, a millionaire businessman who in the last four years has emerged as the dominant figure in Dutch politics.
United States-Soviet arms talks continued today, with a regular weekly session between negotiating groups on long-range strategic nuclear weapons. The meeting, which lasted three and a half hours, was the 26th between the strategic arms groups since the overall talks began in March 1985. Separate groups on defensive space systems meet every Tuesday, while Thursdays are set aside for negotiators on medium-range nuclear weapons. The fifth round at the arms talks began May 8.
A West German prosecutor announced today that he had ended a three-month political corruption investigation of Chancellor Helmut Kohl because of insufficient evidence. At the same time, there were strong indications that prosecutors in Bonn would also halt an investigation into allegations that Mr. Kohl failed to tell the truth when he told a Bonn parliamentary committee last year he knew nothing of large illegal payments to his party by the Flick industrial concern. The announcement today brought at least partial relief to Mr. Kohl from potential political embarrassment in local elections next month in Lower Saxony state and national elections early next year. Recent polls suggest Mr. Kohl’s Christian Democratic Party will lose its clear majority in Lower Saxony, particularly after the Government’s ban on fresh produce sales after the Chernobyl accident angered farmers and increased the chances of the small environmental Green Party.
Kurt Waldheim, under attack for his role with Hitler’s army, condemned Nazi crimes today and urged fellow Austrians to fight anti-Semitism. In a speech in his campaign for the Austrian presidential election runoff on June 8, he rejected as a smear campaign a series of revelations concerning his service with the German Army in the Balkans in 1942-45. In earlier accounts of his life, he had said that his service in the German Army ended when he was wounded on the Soviet front in late 1941.
West Germany said today that it had held secret talks with Albania on establishing diplomatic ties and indicated that the two sides had resolved a 40-year stumbling block over Albanian demands for war reparations. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the talks had been held in Vienna and had “clarified a series of very important requirements” for exchanging ambassadors. He termed the talks exploratory and confidential. Both sides agreed at the last round in March to meet again soon.
Sir Keith Joseph, a hardline Conservative and one of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s staunchest supporters in the party, stepped down as Education Minister today. Mrs. Thatcher appointed a more centrist Conservative in his place. The new Education Minister is Kenneth Baker, 51 years old, who entered the Cabinet eight months ago as Environment Secretary. Sir Keith, 68 years old, is voluntarily retiring and Government officials described the Cabinet changes today as limited. A more sweeping Cabinet shuffle is anticipated in September or October, when Mrs. Thatcher is expected to assemble the team that will take the Conservative Party into the next election, which the Government must call within two years. In other changes, Nicholas Ridley, a right-wing member of the Conservative Party and the Transportation Minister, took over Mr. Baker’s post at the environment department, and John Moore, the Deputy Treasury Minister, became the Transportion Minister.
Thieves stole 17 paintings worth up to $45 million from a mansion near Dublin. They apparently set off an alarm, hid until everything was quiet again, and then struck, taking works by Vermeer, Goya and others. The seven least valuable paintings were found within hours.
Nuclear safety officials said today that a reactor shutdown at the French Bugey power station in 1984 — which was cited in a satirical newspaper — was the most serious in France’s extensive nuclear power program, but they insisted it was very far from a serious accident. In an unrelated incident, the state-owned operator of the nuclear fuel retreatment plant at La Hague in northwestern France reported that five workers were irradiated in an accident at the plant Tuesday. Francois Cogne, head of the Institute for Nuclear Safety and Protection, said the workers received about two or three times the safe annual dose when pipework being closed down was found to have a much higher radiation content than expected.
West Europeans marked the 65th birthday of Andrei D. Sakharov today with appeals to the Soviet Union to free the Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientist from internal exile and let him live as he chooses. Dr. Sakharov’s banishment was discussed in Bern at a 35-nation meeting on improving contacts between people in the West and East. The American chief delegate to the meeting, Michael Novak, said, “He might be lecturing, traveling, leading seminars, and many in the world would benefit immensely by contacts with him.” The West German Government, Austrian and British legislators and human rights groups joined in demanding that the Soviet Government release Dr. Sakharov from six years of banishment to the closed city of Gorky, 250 miles from his home in Moscow.
A special Israeli envoy sought today to win a commitment from Secretary of State George P. Shultz to make a trip to the Middle East to ease Israeli-Egyptian tensions and revive the effort to bring peace to the region. But the envoy, Ezer Weizman, said Mr. Shultz had declined to commit himself to a trip and had merely affirmed United States support for closer relations between Israel and Egypt. Mr. Weizman’s meeting with Mr. Shultz today was the second in a week. State Department officials said Mr. Shultz had been frustrated over the inability to make progress in the Middle East and was reluctant to return to the region without assurances that real progress was possible. Mr. Shultz was noncommittal.
Christian and Muslim militiamen clashed today in their heaviest artillery battle across the Green Line here in four months. The police said 17 people were killed and at least 60 wounded. Thunderous shell blasts shook the Christian and Muslim sectors of the capital as gunners with howitzers and rocket launchers hammered residential neighborhoods on both sides of the three-mile line separating the largely Muslim western part of the city from the mostly Christian east. Radio stations appealed to people to go into bomb shelters and basements. They also pleaded for blood donations in Christian and Muslim hospitals. The police said at least 20 residential districts were bombarded in the flare-up on the eve of a scheduled visit to West Beirut by the newly elected patriarch of Lebanon’s Maronite Catholics, Mar Nasrallah Butros Sfeir. The patriarch’s headquarters at the hilltop Bkerki cathedral north of Beirut came under artillery and rocket fire, Christian radio stations reported, saying the attackers apparently sought to block the patriarch’s West Beirut visit.
Faculty at the American University of Beirut, apparently pressured by death threats against a Lebanese colleague abducted on May 7, called off a 13-day-old general strike. The decision made during an emergency faculty meeting came hours after the kidnappers of Professor Nabil Matar, a Lebanese Christian, issued their second death threat in four days. In a statement accompanied by a color photograph of Matar, a group calling itself the Independent Movement for the Liberation of the Kidnaped described the faculty strike as a provocative act and threatened to kill Matar if it was not called off.
The Jordanian government has arrested the entire leadership of Jordan’s Communist Party, blaming it for an outbreak of student protests, the Lebanese Communist Party announced. A party statement issued in Beirut said the arrests were made in raids on the homes of all 17 leaders of the Moscow-oriented party.
A Libyan defendant told a court in Ankara, Turkey, that he planned to blow up American cars in the Turkish capital in retaliation for the U.S. air raid on Libya last month. Ali Ejefli Ramadan said his target was not the U.S. officers’ club, as charged in the indictment, but American vehicles parked in front of the club. Ramadan rejected the prosecutor’s charge that Libyan Embassy officials helped him in the bomb plot, saying his earlier statement was made under torture. Ramadan and Libyan co-defendant Rajab Muhtar Tarhuni were captured April 18 near the club, carrying a bag containing six Soviet-made hand grenades.
President Reagan today vetoed a Congressional resolution that sought to block his request to sell advanced missiles to Saudi Arabia. The Senate, threatened with a filibuster by lawmakers who oppose the President, postponed a vote on overriding the veto until after the Memorial Day recess, which began tonight. The President’s decision on Tuesday to remove from the arms package 800 hand-held Stinger antiaircraft missiles won over several wavering lawmakers today. So did his personal lobbying, and by midday vote counters said the attempt to override the veto could be decided by one or two votes. Late in the afternoon, Democratic leaders realized that some of their members were leaving town for Memorial Day and that the advantage was swinging to the Administration. After an emergency caucus of the party, the Democratic leaders told the majority leader, Bob Dole of Kansas, that they would speak at length against the measure if he tried to force a vote tonight.
Sri Lankan Government planes bombed Tamil separatist rebels on the Jaffna Peninsula today, guerrillas blew up a factory and six civilians were killed in a brawl with soldiers in Colombo. In other signs of growing violence, a National Security Ministry spokesman said that guerrillas killed nine civilians from a village of the country’s majority Sinhalese and that the rebels killed three soldiers in an attack on a military outpost. Residents of the peninsula, which has a population of one million, said planes and helicopters bombed and strafed several islands and coastal villages around the city of Jaffna.
South Korean riot police, firing tear gas, stormed the American Cultural Center in Pusan to end a brief occupation by 21 students who burst into the building shouting “Yankee go home!” U.S. Embassy officials in Seoul said two policemen suffered minor injuries in the incident. The students were armed with gasoline-bottle bombs and pipes when they occupied the building, which houses the U.S. Consulate and a U.S. Information Agency office. It was the second time the building has been invaded by radical students opposed to South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan, a U.S. ally. It was the latest in a series of anti-American actions by student militants and other dissidents opposed to President Chun Doo Hwan. A police spokesman said that the students hurled two gasoline bombs when they charged into the building.
The secretary general of Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party reportedly declared support for simultaneous elections for both houses of Parliament, a move regarded as favorable to Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in his quest for an unprecedented third term. Nakasone is said to feel that by combining elections, he can win such an impressive mandate that the Liberal Democrats would pick him as party president, and thus another term as prime minister. Party rules now bar a third term.
Manila took control of a company. A Philippine Government commission seized controlling shares of the San Miguel Corporation, a large food and beverage concern, to forestall a possible takeover bid by a Marcos associate. Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile assailed the action.
Relief planes dropped food and other emergency supplies today to victims of a tropical cyclone that slashed through the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless. The official death toll from the cyclone that struck the island group Monday stood at three, but officials said dozens of islanders were missing.
Culiacan is the capital of Sinaloa, the state most famous among Mexican citizens, Mexican Government officials and United States diplomats and drug agents as the capital of Mexican drug trafficking. This city is an example of how drug trafficking in some parts of Mexico has become an integral part of daily life and how difficult controlling it can be. It is Sinaloa, perhaps more than any other place in Mexico, where reports of official corruption that permits drug trafficking are the strongest. The Governor, 67-year-old Antonio Toledo Corro, has been variously accused of — but never formally charged with — deep involvement in trafficking and the sale of protection to traffickers. The allegations have come not only from narcotics agents but from various United States officials. The Governor, who owns a 7,500-acre ranch in southern Sinaloa and an agricultural equipment agency, vehemently denies such allegations, declaring them “defamation, the worst defamation.” A few months ago, say residents of this city of 600,000 in western Mexico, the country’s most-wanted drug trafficker came to town on a Saturday afternoon for the coming-out party of a 15-year-old girl. While the trafficker, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, was enjoying the party in a public hall, a dozen green vans paraded through the city. In each were four or five men, armed with machine guns and other weapons and presumed to be Mr. Felix Gallardo’s confederates. Eventually, they drove out of town as quietly as they had arrived, unchallenged and unmolested.
Senior Soviet and American officials held talks about Central America in Moscow this week, but made no progress toward resolving differences, Western diplomats said today. The discussions, held Tuesday, were designed to enable the two sides to exchange views and were not intended to be negotiating sessions, diplomats said. The diplomats said there was no indication that the talks might smooth the way for a peace treaty in the region or a reduction of Soviet-American tensions over Nicaragua.
The United States has ordered two Nicaraguan diplomats to leave the country by Friday, calling the move a response to Nicaragua’s claim in March that four U.S. diplomats had engaged in spying in Managua. The Nicaraguans are William Vigil, a political counselor, and Miriam Hooker, first secretary for press relations. Miguel Cordero, political officer at the embassy, said he was summoned to the State Department last week and given a formal request that the two be withdrawn. Such a request is tantamount to expulsion.
Paraguayans opposing their ruler, General Alfredo Stroessner, are demonstrating against his rule. More than a dozen marches protesting his 32-year-long reign have been held in the last two months. The President has responded by sending out troops with clubs and tear gas.
The leader of the Marxist Government in Addis Ababa says that Ethiopia wants to improve its strained relations with the United States, but that the Reagan Administration must first curb its “anti-Ethiopia stance.” The Ethiopian leader, Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, speaking in an unusual news conference for foreign journalists here, sharply criticized Washington for what he termed its “sheer arrogance” and “blind hatred” against his Government’s Marxist policies. But he said relations were not “irreparably ruptured.” The 90-minute session Monday touched on various subjects, including Ethiopia’s relations with Somalia and the Sudan and its program of relocating hundreds of thousands of people threatened by famine.
A report issued today by an American committee of lawyers asserts that over the last three years, Zimbabwe’s Government has committed a wide range of human rights violations against its political opponents and other people in the south of the country. The report, issued by the New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, charges that Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s Government has engaged in a systematic campaign of terror and repression against the minority Ndebele-speaking people of southern Zimbabwe. Many of the report’s assertions, which include torture, murder, arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention, have been made in the past by Amnesty International. A spokesman for the Zimbabwe Government, Justin Nyoka, declined to respond to repeated telephone requests for comment on the charges. In the past, the Government has denounced similar contentions by Amnesty International. Mr. Mugabe has described the rights group as “Amnesty Lies International.”
President P. W. Botha warned today that South Africa would strike again against the outlawed African National Congress “if necessary.” Speaking in Cape Town, he said the raids into three black-governed countries against what he said were guerrilla installations this week were only “the first installment.” At the same time, Oliver Tambo, the Congress’s exiled leader, called on South African blacks in a radio broadcast from Lusaka, Zambia, to refuse to pay rents or taxes and to “spread total civil disobedience.” The speech was broadcast on Radio Freedom, the Congress’s station, which is beamed into South Africa.
A bipartisan coalition of members of the U.S. House and the Senate proposed today that the United States impose stiffer economic sanctions on South Africa. The proposed new steps, offered two days after South African forces attacked the capitals of three neighboring black-governed nations, are expected to produce another major Congressional challenge to the Reagan Administration’s policy on apartheid. The sanctions, if approved, would prohibit new investment in private businesses in the country. It would be the first such measure affecting the private sector in South Africa.
President Reagan today strongly defended his Administration’s budget priorities by asserting that America’s hungry were suffering not from the unavailability of assistance, but from a lack of knowledge of where or how to get help. The President said that between the efforts of the Government and charitable groups, “I don’t believe that there is anyone going hungry in America simply by reason of denial or lack of ability to feed them; it is by people not knowing where or how to get this help.” At the same time, Mr. Reagan said his Administration’s insistence on increasing military spending was necessary in view of the Soviet Union’s goal of “world revolution” to bring about a Communist state. The President said that in the last five years the Soviet Union had outbuilt the United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by “50 times” in such military hardware as fighter planes, bombers, tanks and ballistic missiles.
President Reagan addresses students visiting Washington with the “Close-up Foundation,” a non-partisan educational foundation.
President Reagan participates in a signing ceremony for S.J. Resolution 267, Older Americans Melanoma Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention Week.
With no recorded opposition, the Senate sent President Reagan a bill to strengthen the Safe Drinking Water Act by creating a national program to protect underground aquifers from pollutants. The bill became the first important piece of environmental legislation to clear Capitol Hill and go to the White House since the 99th Congress began nearly 18 months ago. The proposal, passed 382 to 21 by the House on May 13, would authorize a big jump in spending through 1991. A principal feature is a requirement that states develop and get Environmental Protection Agency approval for plans to protect so-called wellhead areas that provide water to public systems.
The Department of Transportation can withhold funds from states that allow people under 21 to buy alcoholic beverages, a federal appeals court ruled in St. Louis. The three-judge panel upheld a lower court ruling that dismissed a lawsuit by South Dakota challenging a 1984 amendment to the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982. Under the law, the secretary of transportation can withhold 5% of a state’s federal transportation funding if the state has not adopted a minimum drinking age of 21 by October 1, 1986. In South Dakota, beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% or lower can be sold to 19-year-olds.
The Justice Department endorsed proposed legislation that would provide mandatory 15-year federal prison terms for habitual criminals convicted of serious drug offenses and crimes of violence. At a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, a Justice Department spokesman supported bills that would expand the coverage of a 1984 law that applied only to “career criminals.”
A Federal advisory panel today called for improved treatment of pain after hearing testimony that millions of Americans are cared for inadequately. The panel of experts suggested that many patients who suffer from short-term pain after surgery or from pain associated with cancer get doses of painkilling drugs that are too low or too infrequent to be effective. In contrast, the panelists said, many victims of chronic pain caused by such lingering problems as low-back ailments, migraine or tension headaches, or arthritis often receive far more medication than needed, increasing the danger that the patient will become addicted to the medication or that it will impair the patient’s functioning more than the original pain did. The panelists, who were convened by the National Institutes of Health, spoke at a news conference after a three-day conference designed to develop a consensus statement on pain management to guide the actions of health professionals throughout the country.
The Consumer Price Index, continuing to reflect the collapse in oil prices, fell three-tenths of 1 percent in April, the Labor Department reported today. This was the third consecutive monthly decline, the first time this has happened since 1954. The last three months, moreover, have shown the biggest drop in prices at the retail level for such a period since late 1948 and early 1949. Although the benefits of lower oil prices are expected to continue to work through the economy and be reflected in the overall price level, most analysts agreed that because oil prices have firmed for now, today’s report was almost certain to be the last to show absolute declines.
Jackie Presser was re-elected president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters by an overwhelming vote today, with delegates demonstrating boisterous support for the teamster leader, who faces Federal charges of embezzlement and racketeering. Mr. Presser defeated a dissident candidate, C. Sam Theodus, president of Local 407 in Cleveland, by a vote of 1,729 to 24. Mr. Theodus had the support of a longstanding dissident group, Teamsters for a Democratic Union. At 2:30 PM, Mr. Theodus went to a microphone and said, “I am willing to concede.” But Joseph Trerotola, a union vice president who was conducting the vote, refused to allow it to stop.
The C.I.A. criticized a newspaper for publishing an article about a classified intelligence gathering operation involving American submarines. The agency said it may take action against the Washington Post for printing information pertaining to a spy trial.
TWA flight attendants, who called off a nine-week strike in hopes of salvaging their jobs, appeared to overwhelmingly reject the same economic package that led to their walkout March 7. Independent Federation of Flight Attendants officials said votes were counted in all cities but New York, the largest local. The incomplete nationwide tally was 3,265 against the company offer, and 66 in favor, union official Joy Turkel said.
A suspect in a series of slayings and assaults in California pleaded not guilty today to 14 murder charges and 31 other felony charges. The lawyers for the suspect, Richard Ramirez, sometimes called the “Night Stalker,” said, however, that they were encouraged because five robbery counts had been dropped. Mr. Ramirez’s lawyers said they would file motions seeking to have the whole case thrown out or moved to a city where Mr. Ramirez was not so well known. One of the lawyers, Daniel Hernandez, said many Los Angeles residents were taking the case personally because of fear that gripped the county last summer as people were killed in their homes. He said he would prefer to have the trial in the San Francisco Bay area. Mr. Ramirez, 26 years old, a drifter from El Paso, remains charged with 45 felonies.
The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith intensified its campaign against Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr.’s radical political movement by calling the group a devious cult. The league, long a foe of LaRouche, also said it would circulate a pamphlet on “the LaRouche cult’s fantasy world.” Included are quotes from LaRouche publications that tie Queen Elizabeth II to the drug trade and describe Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov as a KGB agent.
Pentagon officials failed to provide adequate supervision of Army tests of an armored troop carrier, leaving the military open to charges that the tests were designed to hide the vehicle’s vulnerabilities, according to a forthcoming Congressional report. The report, by the House Armed Services Committee, is to be published Thursday. It asserts that a series of tests of the troop carrier, the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, were badly managed by the Army last year, when live ammunition was used in experiments to test ways to improve the Bradley’s chance of survival in combat.
Great Lakes governors backed “coordinated regional action” to control toxic substances that could undermine 15 years of progress in cleaning up the lakes. The agreement sets a timetable for devising common limits by the eight states on chemicals in the lakes and standards for dumping procedures. Four of the Governors signed the document today after Gov. James J. Blanchard of Michigan reported that more than 400 potentially toxic chemicals had been found in the Great Lakes. The signing marked the end of a three-day conference on large lakes on this tiny island, which is located in the Straits of Mackinac between two of the world’s largest lakes, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. More than 400 scientists and environmentalists from 40 countries attended the sessions and shared technical details of their research.
128 unspoiled acres in Vermont are the focus of a statewide dispute. When Arthur Williams died last year at the age of 83, he left his prize possession to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of Vermont: 128 acres of unspoiled land on the shore of Lake Champlain. Mr. Williams, a retired well-driller, had lived frugally, friends say, scrimping on heat and food to pay the rising taxes on his land. He hoped his bequest, made without restrictions, would insure that the land, rolling meadows and woods with a panoramic view of the lake and the Green Mountains, remained undeveloped. But then the Scouts decided they needed money more than they needed Mr. Williams’s land. So they moved to sell it to a real estate developer for $1.05 million, shunning offers from two conservation groups and the town of Charlotte for $1 million. But an agreement was reached yesterday to allow part of the tract to be set aside for preservation.
An undercover unit of 101 narcotics officers is being established by the New York City Police Department to arrest the sellers of crack and break up “crack houses,” where the potent form of cocaine is smoked, Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward announced yesterday. The formation of the new unit came as Rudolph W. Giuliani, the United States Attorney in Manhattan, reported that 44 suspected dealers in the drug had been arrested in raids by city police on Tuesday night and would be prosecuted under Federal law. Eighteen of the 44 were arrested near schools, subjecting them to possible prison terms of 30 years, double the usual penalty.
The nation’s top military officer today admonished 1,015 graduates of the Naval Academy to keep an open mind, learn to laugh at themselves and not pay too much attention to prophets of doom. In a speech that largely avoided references to military affairs and world conflicts, Admiral William J. Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the newly commissioned officers that “previous ages have faced more disease, more poverty, more hunger, more corruption, more racism and more killing than your generation.” “The bottom line,” he said, “is you should direct your energies to further improving our condition without being burdened with worrying about our decline and fall.”
A rain of up to five inches has raised the spirits of farmers in a half-dozen drought-parched Southeastern states, but officials say more rain is needed before the region’s water problems are eased. The rain has been reported since the weekend in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Florida, where many areas have had their driest spring on record. “We were about to lose hope,” said James Farmer of Elmore County, northeast of Montgomery, Ala., which got 3.75 inches of rain in the three days that ended Monday night. “But this rain, it’s been a lifesaver.” However, officials said the rainfall had done little to replenish underground supplies in the region. “The stream flow and ground-water level is now lower than we’ve ever seen it for the middle of May,” said Elmo Lunn, director of the Tennessee Health and Environment Department’s Water Management Division.
The U.S. performs a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
Young girls who diet and exercise so much that they delay puberty apparently are prone to curvature of the spine and bone brittleness leading to fractures, researchers said in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The new study involving ballet dancers found that pre-pubescent girls who exercised and dieted to maintain the classic ballerina’s figure often began menstruating late and were likely to develop scoliosis and broken bones.
The challenge of defending the National Basketball Association title has not been easy, and tonight, in stunning fashion, the champion failed to retain its crown for the 17th consecutive season. Ralph Sampson sank a last-second desperation toss from 12 feet out to give the Houston Rockets a 114–112 victory that dethroned the Los Angeles Lakers. The Rockets eliminated the Lakers by the surprising margin of four games to one in the Western Conference finals, losing only the series opener. Houston will now meet the Boston Celtics, the Eastern Conference winners, in the N.B.A. final series, beginning Monday in Boston.
Major League Baseball:
At Atlanta, the Braves outlast the Chicago Cubs to win 9–8 in 13 innings. Andre Thomas, who entered the game as a pinch runner, walks the bases loaded in the 13th. Ken Oberkfell has 5 hits and Rafael Ramirez collects a record-tying 4 doubles. It was the sixth straight victory for the Braves, who had 21 hits. The winning run was unearned. Bob Horner reached safely on the third baseman Manny Trillo’s fielding error to open the 13th. Jeff Dedmon then forced Horner at second and raced to third on Rafael Ramirez’s fourth double of the game, which tied a major league record. After Ozzie Virgil was walked intentionally, Thomas drew the game-winning walk. The Cubs had gained an 8–8 tie with two outs in the ninth when Jody Davis hit a three-run homer over the centerfield fence off Bruce Sutter.
Cal Ripken Jr. hit a two-run homer with two outs in the seventh inning, lifting Baltimore to a 2–1 victory over the visiting California Angels. Mike Witt (3–4) had allowed only one hit, a bouncing single by Fred Lynn in the fourth, before Lynn singled again with one out in the seventh. Storm Davis (4–2) gave up eight hits in eight-and-one-third innings for the victory. Don Aase, who has six saves and a victory in his last eight relief appearances, got the last two outs for his 10th save.
Steve Lyons doubled and scored Boston’s first run in the sixth inning and then drove in the go-ahead run with a single in the seventh tonight, rallying the Red Sox to a 3–2 victory over the Minnesota Twins after two long rain delays. Boston struck back for its fifth consecutive victory after the game was delayed by rain for 1 hour 59 minutes at the start of the sixth and for 40 minutes in the top of the seventh. With Boston trailing, 2–1, Jim Rice started the Red Sox seventh against the reliever Mark Portugal (0–5) with a single and went to third on Don Baylor’s double off the left-field wall. After Frank Pastore replaced Portugal, Rice scored as Tony Armas grounded out to short, tying the score. One out later, Lyons singled to shallow left, scoring Baylor.
Pinch-hitter Jerry Hairston singled home Tim Hulett from third base with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning as the Chicago White Sox gained their seventh consecutive victory, edging the Toronto Blue Jays, 5–4. The White Sox had rallied from a 4–1 deficit.
Larry Herndon went 2 for 3, including a home run, and drove in two runs for Detroit, as the Tigers bested the Mariners, 6–4. Eric King (1–0) pitched six innings of one-hit scoreless relief to gain his first major-league victory. Mark Langston (2–4) yielded all six Tiger runs, giving up nine hits and walking six before being relieved in the ninth.
Rick Rhoden pitched a five-hitter and Sid Bream hit a homer and a double to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates to a 2–1 victory over the Houston Astros tonight. Rhoden (3–3) struck out six and walked three in ending a personal three-game losing streak. The Houston starter, Mike Scott (4–3) pitched seven innings. He struck out nine batters to equal his career high for the fifth time this season. He leads the National League with 77 strikeouts. The Pirates took a 1–0 lead in the second after Bream led off with a double, advanced to third on a single by Mike Brown and scored as Jim Morrison hit a single to center field. Pittsburgh increased its lead to 2–0 in the fourth when Bream hit Scott’s first pitch over the left-field fence for his seventh homer of the season. Houston scored in the fourth on a run-scoring single by Denny Walling.
The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Montreal Expos, 6–1. Mike Marshall homered twice, drove in three runs and scored three times for Los Angeles. Orel Hershiser (4–3) hurled a four-hitter for seven innings and helped himself with a hit and an RBI. Marshall raised his home run total to 10 and his RBI total to 32, tying him with Hubie Brooks of the Expos for the league lead in both categories.
The Cleveland Indians beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4–2. Tom Candiotti, a former Milwaukee pitcher, held the Brewers to four singles and got the victory for Cleveland. Candiotti, signed by Cleveland as a free agent in December after five years in the Milwaukee organization, improved his record to 3–4 in his first-ever appearance against the Brewers. Bill Wegman (0–4) pitched eight innings for the loss.
The two-run home run and the two-run double that Dan Pasqua swatted against Eric Plunk last night should have come as no surprise to Oakland’s rookie pitcher. Plunk saw Pasqua hit 35 of his first 37 professional home runs and produce 147 of his first 151 runs batted in. Minor league teammates for most of two seasons at Paintsville, Ky. (1982), and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (1983), Pasqua and Plunk faced each other at Yankee Stadium wearing different uniforms for the first time and the results were the key ingredients in the Yankees’ 10–4 victory over the A’s. Pasqua, who the Yankees hope will be a key ingredient in their pennant pursuit, made his first start since his promotion from Columbus Sunday and electrified the crowd with his shots in the third and fifth innings. Making his third major league appearance, the 22-year-old rookie right-hander pitched to Pasqua for the first time in the third inning after Don Mattingly had stroked his second single with two out. Pasqua, who last season hit 9 home runs in 148 times at bat for the Yankees, swung at Plunk’s first pitch and whacked it more than halfway up the right-center field bleachers for a 2–0 lead. The next time Plunk saw Pasqua, in the fifth, the Yankees had one out and Henderson at third and Willie Randolph at second. This time, Pasqua swung at Plunk’s second pitch and lashed it along the right-field line for a two-run double that increased the Yankees’ lead to 5–0 and knocked Plunk from the game.
The Padres spanked the Phillies, 7–2. Tony Gwynn went 4 for 4 and Dave Dravecky struck out a career-high 11 batters for San Diego. After giving up three hits in the third inning, including a two-run, bases-loaded single to Mike Schmidt, Dravecky (4–3) retired the next 19 batters.
Ron Darling pitched three-hit ball for seven innings today and won his fifth straight game as the Mets defeated the San Francisco Giants, 7–4, and won their third straight. But, despite his success, Darling once more was reminded that Dwight Gooden is an exceptionally tough act to follow. Dave Johnson, the manager of the Mets, said that Darling had been “terrible” today. Darling conceded that “the numbers are nice, but I was out of sync all game.” And everybody wanted to ask Darling how it felt to be No. 2 on a pitching staff when No. 1 was Dwight Gooden, who will pitch the final game of the series Thursday afternoon. The early Mets’ victim was Roger Mason, a 6-foot-6-inch, 215-pounder from Michigan who may not stay in the rotation when Vida Blue rejoins it. Mason began by loading the bases with nobody out, a sure invitation to disaster. Mookie Wilson walked, Wally Backman doubled down the left-field line, Keith Hernandez walked and the Mets had three men on base with Gary Carter batting. Mason survived that one, getting Carter on a pop fly to the shortstop. But Darryl Strawberry lined a double into the left-field corner, and the Mets had two runs. Then the Giants walked Danny Heep intentionally to load the bases again and hope for the double play. Instead, they got one out when Ray Knight hit a short line drive to right field that Chili Davis grabbed on the run. Nobody advanced, so Mason still had a chance to escape at the cost of only two runs. But Howard Johnson broke an 0-for-16 slump by whistling a double into the same corner in left field, two more runs crossed, and the Mets led by four.
The Cardinals downed the Reds, 8–3. Andy Van Slyke hit his first home run of the season to key a four-run sixth inning rally, helping St. Louis end a six-game losing streak. The triumph was only the seventh in 27 games for St. Louis, which trailed, 3–0, before rallying. Van Slyke’s two-run homer and ensuing doubles by Terry Pendleton and Mike Heath came off the starter, John Denny (2–5), who carried a three-hitter and a 3–1 lead into the Cardinals’ sixth. Jack Clark started the comeback with a single and Van Slyke followed with his homer to right. Pendleton and Heath each doubled to left-center to snap a 3–3 tie, and Tito Landrum greeted the Reds reliever Joe Price with a run-scoring double after Denny hit Ozzie Smith with a pitch.
The Rangers edged the Royals, 2–1. George Wright’s run-scoring triple into the right-field corner with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning led the Rangers to victory. Pete O’Brien set up the game-winning hit with a two-out single off the reliever Steve Farr (2–1), and his run made a winner of the reliever Greg Harris (3–6). Jose Guzman took a five-hitter and a 1–0 lead into the ninth inning, but the Royals scored their first run in 19 innings to tie the score. Rudy Law, who had three hits, led off the ninth with a double and Guzman was replaced by Mitch Williams, who retired George Brett but allowed Law to go to third on a wild pitch. With Harris pitching, Frank White hit a grounder to the third baseman Steve Buechele, whose throw to the plate hit Law, allowing him to score.
Chicago Cubs 8, Atlanta Braves 9
California Angels 1, Baltimore Orioles 2
Minnesota Twins 2, Boston Red Sox 3
Toronto Blue Jays 4, Chicago White Sox 5
Seattle Mariners 4, Detroit Tigers 6
Pittsburgh Pirates 2, Houston Astros 1
Montreal Expos 1, Los Angeles Dodgers 6
Cleveland Indians 4, Milwaukee Brewers 2
Oakland Athletics 4, New York Yankees 10
Philadelphia Phillies 2, San Diego Padres 7
New York Mets 7, San Francisco Giants 4
Cincinnati Reds 3, St. Louis Cardinals 8
Kansas City Royals 1, Texas Rangers 2
Trading activity remained very slow yesterday on Wall Street, where stock prices turned moderately lower after interest rates inched up. Ralph Acampora, a market analyst with Kidder, Peabody & Company, said that doubt remained about the direction of rates, and that “around 2:30 the market really started to keel over.” The Dow Jones industrial average was up nearly 4 points as late as 2 P.M., but by the close it was down 8.81 points, to 1,775.17.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1775.17 (-8.81)
Born:
Matt Wieters, MLB catcher (All-Star, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016; Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, St. Louis Cardinals), in Goose Creek, South Carolina.
Eddie Royal, NFL wide receiver (Denver Broncos, San Diego Chargers, Chicago Bears), in Alexandria, Virginia.
Ricardo Lockette, NFL wide receiver (Seattle Seahawks), in Albany, Georgia.
Darrell Strong, NFL tight end (Oakland Raiders), in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Greg Stewart, Canadian NHL left wing (Montreal Canadiens), in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, American actress (High Fidelity, The Holdovers), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Myra [Quintana], Mexican-American pop singer (“Miracles Happen (When You Believe)”), in Los Angeles, California.
Sarah Gibson, American pianist and contemporary classical composer (“warp & weft”), in Spartanburg, South Carolina (d. 2024).
History Diaries 